


Affinity

by Cinnamongirl



Series: Lileas Lavellan [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dorian Is a Good Bro, Drabble Collection, F/M, Non-Graphic References to Homicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8182880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamongirl/pseuds/Cinnamongirl
Summary: After being laid off from her job, Lavellan accepts a one-year teaching position at a university while she tries to figure out what to do with her career. She's intrigued by a fellow professor with a mysterious past and terrible fashion sense. A Solavellan University AU where she teaches chemistry and he teaches history.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of my attempts to figure out what my assassin rogue Lavellan would do for a living in a modern AU (she's organized, analytical, knowledgeable about poison, and not squeamish about murder, so I went with forensic toxicologist) and, because the fandom seems to have decided that modern!Solas would be a history professor, how the two of them would meet. I will probably never make a full story out of this but here are a few drabbles that I originally posted on Tumblr.

Lileas turned the corner and came face-to-face with an enormous black bear.

She blinked.

It was just the bear’s head, she realized a moment later, mounted on the wall alongside some kind of deer and the heads of several other animals.

This… was not the chemistry department.

She turned around and saw a large glass case with a live snake inside of it. She still didn’t know where she was, but the snake was a more comforting sight. Her life had essentially revolved around poisons for the past several years and even though she could tell that this species wasn’t venomous, it made her feel weirdly nostalgic.

“Do you need help finding anything?”

The voice was coming from a man, maybe in his early 30s, with a hipster mustache and an undercut. He was wearing a leather jacket. (At least it looked like real leather- looked expensive, too.)

“I must’ve made a wrong turn somewhere. I was looking for the chem department office- it's in Room 201.” It should have been just down the hall, but then there also shouldn’t have been animal heads on the walls.

“Ah, yes, this is the third floor.” He chuckled softly, “I imagine the decorations in the chemistry department aren’t quite so dramatic. You’ll want to go this way,” he gestured, and she started to follow him down the hallway.

“This isn't the second floor? I thought I started at the first floor and went one floor up. I took a different staircase this time; maybe that’s where I went wrong?”

“Your first mistake was assuming that this building could be navigated with anything resembling logic.”

She laughed, feeling slightly less embarrassed.

“Don’t worry, I promise you’ll get the hang of it by the time you graduate.”

“…I’m faculty, actually.” She’d had this conversation many times, and it was never comfortable.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize-” he said awkwardly as he led her down yet another staircase that she’d never seen before.

“Don’t worry, I get that a lot. I’m 31 but apparently I look about 19. I’m sure it’ll be great when I’m 40!” She’d made an effort to wear clothes that were at the dressy end of business casual, use Dermablend to cover her tattoos, and carry her stuff in a professional-looking shoulder bag, but she was still short and thin and young-looking on a college campus. “This is my first semester teaching. Sometime around the second week I made the mistake of going to a coffee shop right off campus and these 18-year-old boys kept flirting with me.” She shuddered at the memory.

He winced sympathetically. “Just wait until they try to seduce you to get better grades.”

“What?” She realized that she’d stopped walking and hurried to catch up again. “They do that?!”

“Unfortunately, yes. I’ve had several male students–and a few very optimistic female students—try, but nobody’s been particularly aggressive, thank God. Nothing like the horror stories I’ve heard from some of the other faculty.”

“Ugh. I think I should’ve stuck with murder.”

“I do hope you plan to elaborate on that last comment.”

She laughed. “I teach forensic chemistry. I worked as a toxicologist for a state crime lab before I came here. And no, it’s not like CSI.”

“I imagine you hear that a lot.”

She made a noncommittal noise as they arrived at the department office. “Thanks for helping me find my way! My name is Lileas, by the way.” She stuck out her hand, and he shook it.

“Dorian. I’m usually upstairs in the biology department if you get lost again.”

“Wait…” She remembered the name that she’d seen on her students’ schedules. “You’re not Dorian Pavus, are you?”

“Yes.” He quirked an eyebrow. “How far as my reputation spread, exactly?”

“You? _You’re_ the infamous Dr. Pavus?”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered or concerned. And why do you sound surprised?”

“I suppose I expected you to have horns, or to be eating babies or something.” She certainly hadn’t expected the evil Dr. Pavus to be close to her own age.

He laughed so hard that he stumbled a bit and had to hold onto the wall for balance. “I see you’ve met some of my students.”

“Have you had lunch yet? I just have to drop off some paperwork and then I was going to go eat. I’m not… being optimistic”, she added, realizing how her invitation sounded, “I’m just the youngest person in my department by about 30 years and I don’t have anyone to talk with-”

“No, I get it.” He smiled. “I’ll wait out here for you, shall I?”

 

Dorian offered to drive them. His car turned out to be a BMW that looked to be approximately several years old. Lileas admittedly didn’t know much about cars, but she could tell that it was in good condition. He plugged his phone in to charge it and she noticed that it was a few generations old and had a badly cracked screen. So, he’d come from a family that was apparently wealthy enough to buy their son an expensive car while he was in grad school, but he was now broke? There had to be an interesting story behind that.

 

“So why am I infamous, exactly?” he asked after they’d found an empty table and sat down with their burritos.

“The majority of my gen chem class is in your anatomy and physiology class, I think, and they all seem to hate you.”

He nodded, apparently unsurprised.

“You’re supposedly very strict and very mean and your tests are horrible. One of my students actually started crying because I wouldn’t let her study for one of your tests during my class.” She shook her head. “It’s not like they like me any better. Their second test is coming up next week and I can only hope it’ll be better than the first one.”

“Let me guess, you thought you made it really easy but half of the class failed?”

She nodded, grimly, “And that was AFTER I curved it.”

“That’s standard with freshman-level classes, I’m afraid. Biology requires a lot of memorization, which requires studying. There’s no way around it. They don’t go to office hours and they barely show up to class and then they’re surprised to find out that they’re failing.”

“-And they think it’s like the crime shows on TV and then they’re shocked to realize that paint analysis isn’t as glamorous as they thought it would be and you actually have to use a lot of math.” She rolled her eyes.

“Upper level undergraduate classes are better. They’re more cynical by then, but the students who don’t want to be here have been weeded out so you’re left with the ones who actually care.”

She took a bite of her burrito, thoughtfully.

“So, what made you decide to leave crimesolving for the cutthroat world of academia, anyway?”

“Well, the short answer is that I was laid off. Remember the budget cuts that the governor’s been making?”

“Yes, murder investigations are just a pointless waste of taxpayer dollars, aren’t they?”

“Right? So, I was thinking that it was time to try something different anyway and I saw a posting for a position here. Apparently someone was fired right before the semester started- was his name Rally something? I guess there was some kind of big scandal?”

Dorian dropped the tortilla chip he’d been holding and laughed out loud. “Raleigh Samson? You replaced him?”

“It was that big of a deal?” she asked, surprised.

“I didn’t hear much officially, but there has been a lot of very dramatic gossip going around.”

“Damn.” She would have to convince someone to tell her the whole story, sometime. “Anyway, they had students registered for classes with no one to teach them and seniors who had to take certain courses in order to graduate with the forensic science accreditation, but they didn’t have time to do a formal faculty search. I got hired for this year while they find someone for an official tenure-track position. I get to make very little money and test-drive this as a career while I decide whether to try for another university job, or go back to law enforcement, or maybe go into the private sector.” She had options, if nothing else.

“My advice? Get out of academia while you can,” he said with a fake-serious expression.

“Aren’t you trying to make a career out of this?”

“It’s too late for me. Save yourself.”

She looked at him skeptically, and then they both burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Bio dept decorations and Hogwarts-esque building layout are both inspired by the university where I went to grad school.


	2. Chapter 2

Scantron technology is great, in theory.

In theory, Lileas could drop off a stack of answer forms along with the key after her students took an exam, and then come back later to pick up a list of scores for everyone in the class.

 

In practice, there was already someone else waiting when she returned. That couldn’t be a good sign. She glanced over and saw that it was a bald, forty-something-looking man wearing a beige sweater.

The only employee in the office hadn’t noticed her yet. The bald guy (who she mentally nicknamed Professor X) HAD noticed her and ducked his head in acknowledgment.

She really wished that she’d brought her phone instead of leaving it to charge in her office.

“What department are you in?” the employee asked without turning around.

“History,” replied Professor X.

“Have you been waiting long?” Lileas asked quietly.

He nodded and made an irritated-looking face. She rolled her eyes in sympathy, and the corners of his lips turned up in a smile.

Professor X had a really nice smile, actually.

They went back to waiting in silence.

She saw a clock on the wall and realized that her office hours were about to start.

“So, history?” she asked awkwardly.

“Yes.”

She REALLY regretted leaving her phone behind.

“I always hated history.”

Fuck, what was wrong with her?

“I’m sorry you had a bad experience with it.” To his credit, he didn’t look annoyed.

“Honestly, I was just really bad at it. I _have_ listened to the Hamilton soundtrack an embarrassing number of times, if that counts for anything.”

“It does,” he said solemnly.

“I didn’t mean any disrespect; I’m sure your field is very interesting and important.”

He only raised an eyebrow in response. His eyes were bright, almost striking. She noticed that he was only a few inches taller than her and that he was lean, but with broad shoulders.

Lileas tried to focus on the wall in front of her. The clock showed that she was late for her own office hours now. It’s not like any students would show up, but she was still supposed to be there.

What would happen if a student actually did come today and she wasn’t there?

Lileas wondered if she should just go back to her office. She wouldn’t have time to pick up the exams before the end of the day and she’d told the class that she’d have them back by tomorrow morning. Was it worse to not be present for office hours when she said that she’d be there, or to not hand the exams back when she said she would?

The employee finally turned around. He was a middle-aged man with messy-looking facial stubble and bushy eyebrows. “Can I help you?” he asked in a very annoyed voice.

“I’m here to pick up my exams. The person I spoke with earlier said that they’d be ready by this afternoon.”

“What’s your name?

“Lileas Lavellan. L-A-V-E-L-L-A-N.”

“Spell that again?”

“L-A-V-E-L-L-A-N.”

He flipped through some papers in what looked like file folders.

What would happen if they’d lost her tests? What would she even do in that situation?

“Which department?” he asked.

“Forensic Chemistry. Or maybe just Chemistry; the class uses the Forensic Chem registration code but I’m considered part of the chemistry department. I’m not sure how it’s listed in your system-”

“You only dropped these off this morning,” he said, having apparently found them. “You need to give us at least two days to score them.”

“But I was told-”

“Everyone is giving midterms right now. You can’t just expect us to have them finished by the end of the day.”

She sighed. “I understand.”

He rolled his eyes. “If you have time to wait, I can run these through the machine after I’m done with his.”

“That would be great, thank you!”

Fifteen minutes late so far.

She noticed that Professor X was looking at her. “Forensic chemistry?” he asked. She would’ve expected him to be smirking but he wasn’t.

“What about it?”

“That sounds fascinating.”

“Oh. I mean, it is!”

“I’m pleased to hear it.”

A pause.

“Random question, but how long have you been teaching?” she blurted out.

“Entirely too long. Why do you ask?”

“This is my first semester and I’m supposed to have office hours right now. What happens if a student shows up and I’m not there?”

“Do you have any tests coming up?”

“No.”

“No one will be there, and if someone is there then you’ll give a plausible excuse and then reschedule. Don’t make a habit of it and you will be fine.”

She felt herself relax. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” He smiled again.

Were they flirting? She thought she was just asking him for advice, but it felt kind of flirty. Or was she just imagining it?

She looked over and caught his eye. He looked amused but not at her, more like they were in on the same joke.

Definitely flirting.

“Here you go!” The employee handed a large stack of Scantrons to Professor X. She watched his hands move and realized that they were the second most elegant hands that she’d ever seen, which was impressive considering that the first had belonged to an orchestra conductor. 

“Thank you.” He turned to Lileas, “It was very nice to meet you.”

“You too!” She waved at him as he walked out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

She’d decided to brave the coffeeshop near campus again. It was too convenient to avoid and she really needed to wake up but she also didn’t want to lose her parking space and she couldn’t possibly be THAT attractive, could she?

It wasn’t actually too bad. Either she’d gotten uglier over the past few months or she looked older or more authoritative or something, but the patrons seemed to be leaving her alone.

“Large hot chocolate for S?” The employee (Carver, according to his name tag) lifted a cup in her direction.

“Uh, no, that’s not-”

“That’ll be mine.” Familiar-looking hands reached across the edge of her vision to take the cup.

Professor X (Professor S?), wearing yet another sweater, was holding his hot chocolate in one hand and a slice of cake in a plastic to-go box in the other.

Did he have the dietary habits of a five-year-old? Lileas sincerely hoped that he wasn’t planning to give that much sugar to an actual five-year-old.

“S?” she asked at the same time that Carver said “Double shot in the dark?”

“Yes, thank you.” She barely glanced away when she reached out for the cup.

“My name is actually Solas, but inevitably I’ll have to repeat it several times and it will still be spelled wrong. This is easier.”

“Oh, that makes sense! I do that too.” Lileas turned her cup to show that it had “Lily” written on it.

He shifted the cake under his arm to hold the door for her and then followed her out. He— _Solas_ —had probably decided to do the same thing she’d done and walk to the coffeeshop so that he wouldn’t have to park again. Was the building with the history department anywhere close to her department? She honestly had no idea.

Were they walking together, or just walking in the same direction? Lileas sipped at her coffee. It wasn’t bad. She briefly considered speeding up to see if he’d match her pace, but decided against it.

“So, why history?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve devoted your life to something that I’m frankly terrible at and now I’m curious and we’ve got a few minutes to kill while we’re walking.”

He laughed, “A fair point. People think of the past as just names and dates and locations, but it’s so much more subjective.”

“What do you mean?”

“Memory is a reconstructive process. A group of people will each recall the same event differently, and we create a narrative in our minds every time we remember something-”

“-Right, that’s why eyewitness testimony is so unreliable.”

“Yes, exactly!” He looked pleased. “It becomes even worse when we try to recall the memories of others. We view the past based on our own preconceptions, and each historical record is just a subjective version of reality.”

“You make arguing about what people did thousands of years ago sound almost romantic.”

“My students don’t think so.”

There was an odd silence.

“Well then, why forensic chemistry?”

_…He remembered?_

“I don’t have an eloquent answer, unfortunately. I went into chemistry because I like it and I’m good at it, and I thought law enforcement sounded better than doing research for a pharmaceutical company or something and getting paid to tell them what they want to hear.”

“A reasonable decision.”

“Yeah, it’s worked for me so far.”

They’d reached her building.

“Well, I have to go spend the rest of the afternoon harassing students for not wearing goggles in the lab. Wish me luck!”

“Good luck, Lileas.” He raised his hot chocolate in a salute.

* * *

Later that evening, she found the history department’s section of the university website and clicked on the “Faculty” link. She scrolled through rows of pictures that looked like they were taken in the 80’s (if not earlier) until she saw the listing “Solas Draiochta- Associate Professor” underneath a picture that looked exactly like the person she’d seen this afternoon.

_Had he aged at all?_

His faculty bio listed where he’d gone to grad school and his research interests, both of which Lileas had never heard of, and mentioned that he’d joined the university in 2015. That explained the recent picture, at least, but it raised more questions.

There were no other dates listed and nothing about whatever he had been doing before last year. Solas said that he’d been a professor for a long time but, if this was even true, he had evidently been a professor somewhere else. Someone his age should have tenure, or at least a solid tenure-track position, and from what Dorian had told her it was essentially unheard of to leave a secure job like that to start over at a new university.

It was always possible that he’d been lying (or massively exaggerating), but it still left a lot of questions. What could someone even do with a PhD in history? Work at a museum, maybe? But if he’d had a museum career, even a mediocre one, why wouldn’t it be mentioned in his bio? People sometimes left unsatisfying academic careers for a position in industry and other people with established non-academic careers took part-time positions as a lecturer or visiting instructor, but people his age didn’t just start from scratch as an Associate Professor unless there was a very good reason and they definitely didn’t leave their entire work history off of their faculty bio page.

Lileas briefly thought about Googling him to see what she could learn, or maybe even asking Leliana if she could find out any information, but she quickly dismissed the idea. Whatever had happened in Solas’ life before, it was probably just something mundane and embarrassing that he didn’t want anyone to know about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the idea that Carver Hawke is involved in his own coffee shop AU that briefly intersects with this one.
> 
> If anyone is curious, Solas DID have tenure at an impressive big-name university until he exposed some kind of massive corruption in the department. (You can tell I'm too lazy to spend any time on worldbuilding for this.) It led to a loss of accreditation, which is why he had to find a new job. The scandal is very well-known in his field so he tries to avoid being associated with it as much as possible.


	4. Chapter 4

Josephine Montilyet was one of the few people who was almost universally loved by the students, faculty, and staff. She’d worked her way up through several positions and had gotten to know almost everyone on campus by the time she announced that she was stepping down to work part-time as an academic advisor, in order to focus on helping with her family’s business so that she could prepare to run it after her parents retired.

Lileas had only met her once before, when she had effortlessly done a large favor for Lileas that saved her lots of time and helped her escape the consequences of a stupid mistake. She was still figuring out the university culture but she was pretty sure that this obligated her to attend Josephine’s end-of-semester party, even though she was still exhausted from staying up late to finish grading assignments that students had handed in at the last minute. Maybe she should be more strict about deadlines next semester.

The party itself was enjoyable enough. There was energizing but inoffensive music playing and good food and lots of alcohol. Dorian was there, which wasn’t a surprise- like Josephine, he also seemed to know everyone. He introduced Lileas to his boyfriend, who was HUGE–-possibly the largest person she’d ever met—and who looked like he was ex-military.

The party seemed to consist of people eating and drinking and talking to each other. Josie was busy rushing around and trying to make sure that everyone was having a good time. Lileas hadn’t been to a house party since she herself was in college so she didn’t really know what to expect. Dorian was involved in a heated argument about some video game that she’d never played, so she wandered around the house until she saw Solas sitting on a couch and being aggressively nuzzled by Josephine’s cat. He had a plate that contained very little food, most of which were various desserts (seriously, how did he have any teeth left?), but he wasn’t able to eat because of the large cat in his lap trying to demand his attention.

He didn’t seem to have noticed her yet. “You know, I would’ve pegged you as a dog person,” she said.

Solas didn’t look surprised to hear her voice, but his eyes lit up when he saw her.

“You’re welcome to explain that to her,” he said as the cat rubbed its head against him and purred enthusiastically.

She shrugged and sat down next to him.

He was surprisingly easy to talk to, for someone she’d only met a few times and probably had nothing in common with. Solas had a lot of fascinating stories but he also seemed interested in her work. They were briefly interrupted when Josie came by to retrieve her cat and apologize profusely, but it wasn’t awkward to get back into the flow of conversation.

Lileas didn’t think she was especially drunk until she realized that the in-depth conversation they were having about different ways to get away with killing someone mostly consisted of her giving graphic, detailed explanations while Solas nodded thoughtfully and picked cat hairs out of his sweater.

He’d evidently drank too much as well, because he pulled out his phone and started showing her pictures of his paintings. Solas apparently liked to paint–mostly for fun, even though he also sold them sometimes. All of the ones he showed her were really good.

Regardless, she had no excuse when she randomly blurted out “I’m an artist, too! Well, kind of. Or I was, anyway.”

Solas responded by raising an eyebrow.

“I was supposed to be a violinist.”

“You were supposed to?”

“You asked why I studied chemistry; it was because my parents insisted that I had to have some kind of backup plan even though I didn’t think I’d ever need one. I was performing with major orchestras when I was really young- not young enough for people to throw the word prodigy around or anything but it was still impressive. My mentor had coached some other people who went on to be really famous and he had a lot of faith in me; I’d been accepted to…” she trailed off.

“What happened?” he asked gently.

“I injured my left hand.”

She waited for him to glance down at it like everyone else did but his gaze remained focused on her face.

“There was a lot of nerve damage. My doctor said that it actually healed very well; I’ve managed to recover most of the function, but…”

She waited for him to say how sorry he was.

“Do you ever still play?”

She blinked, surprised. “Sometimes. I didn’t touch it for a very long time and I started worrying that I’d forgotten how, but I hadn’t. My fingers remembered everything even if they couldn’t stay in tune worth shit. I’ll get my violin out every once in a while just to make sure that I still remember.”

“I’d love to hear you sometime,” he said sincerely.

 

They ran into each other in a hallway when she was returning from the bathroom and he was coming around the corner on the way to get another drink. They almost literally crashed into each other but she stopped herself at the last minute, with her face inches from his.

“Excuse me,” she said, not moving back.

“You move with grace,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

“Are you suggesting that I’m graceful?”

“No, I am declaring it. It was not a subject for debate.”

She burst out laughing. Solas remained silent, but she noticed that he was smiling.

If she leaned forward a bit, her body would be pressed against his.

Instead she reached up to kiss him, only to stop and pull away when she felt him freeze against her mouth.

Lileas was already preparing an apology when he leaned forward to kiss her in return and this time it was deep, with his mouth open for her to lick inside of it. She grabbed onto him and he nudged his thigh between her legs.

They pulled away from each other, reluctantly.

“This is a terrible idea,” he said.

“I know.”

They were drunk and they barely knew each other and he had to be at least ten years older than she was and their colleagues were just in the next room-

Solas leaned in to kiss her one more time. “I really do need to get home soon,” he said. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Solas.”

* * *

The history department was, ironically, housed in one of the newer buildings on campus.

It was almost surreal without classes in session. The lights were on and the heat was running as usual, but only faculty and staff and the occasional grad student were left.

Fortunately, the building was easier to navigate than hers and she found Solas’ office fairly quickly. He’d left his door slightly ajar.

“May I come in?”

“Of course.” He stood up to greet her. “Lileas! It’s good to see you.”

Solas’ office was fairly clean, except for a few stacks of books. He’d left one of them open on his desk.

There was a less-than-comfortable silence until he asked “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m interested in you,” she said bluntly.

He watched her intensely but said nothing.

“It seems like you feel the same way. Do you?”

“I do,” he said evenly.

“Will you have dinner with me?”

He paused, and then smiled. “I would love to.”


End file.
